New York, I Love You

Fate has always played a mysterious role among people regardless of couple, friends or even strangers. We have always wondered how fate brought 2 total strangers into each other’s life and what kind of wonders fate can offer to someone.

New York I Love You is a movie based on 11 different kinds of love and life stories that happen in New York and each is shoot by different directors. New York, one of the most happening urban cities in the world, millions of people eat, work and live there with different kind of lifestyle and culture are brought together by a thing called fate to meet the right person at the right timing. This movie brought us to know the other side of New York City and the love stories that lies beneath it.

New York I Love You is an anthology films that is casts by famous actors and actresses including Nathalie Portman, Bradley Cooper, Orlando Bloom, Maggie Q, Shu Qi, Shia Lebeouf and so on. This movie consists different kinds of love stories at different timing, which I personally think that it is more down-to-earth than the other on-screen love stories. Besides that, the directing and editing skills in this movie is pretty interesting as it is a piece of work combining all the director’s creations. Instead of showing a rather draggy storyline, New York I Love You shows only short and simple life moments that happens at the corner of the city.

Abe and Mitzie

As for my favorite pair in this movie would be Abe and Mitzie that is cast by Eli Wallach and ClorisLeachman. This segment is directed by Joshua Marston telling a story about a pair of old couple that took a walk to the seaside during their anniversary. Although the very cute old couple argued about small little things throughout their way to their destination but still, we know it is a type of love and caring that they expressed to each other. This segment taught us to appreciate and value the people around us as it is not easy to have someone to be stand beside us for a very long time. Abe and Mitzie played a really good role in portraying how a pair of couple should cope and accept each other flaws even though if it means a lifetime nagging on their partner.

David and Camille

Another pair that caught my attention in this movie is David and Camille. Orlando Bloom played as David while Christina Ricci starred as Camille and famous Japanese director, Shunji Iwai, directed this short segment. David is an artist that tends to seek for inspiration at all time and Camille is his secretary that he never met before until one day she decides to knock on his door. How strange is fate when it brings you the chance to finally meet someone important in our lives.

I enjoyed the movie overall although I admit that I do feel a bit lost during the movie showing. It is interesting to be exposed to different types of directing styles and movie genres; at least I learned something from it. I look forward to more unique directing styles and movies in the future!

Great experience and learning throughout the semester and ending my last movie review with a poster of the movie, till then!

Overture

What are dreams if you’re only dreaming about it and not taking actions?

The Overture, a Thai movie that stories about the journey of an honoured traditional Thai music master, Sorn and how he fights through the political inference during years when music is not appreciated. Overture was filmed based on the true story of Thai musician Luang Pradit Phairao. It is one of my very few chances to get to watch a foreign language movie, as it is difficult to understand unless there are subtitles. Luckily for me, Ms lina actually picked this particular Thai movie, which I felt it is a very worth-watching as it encourages us, as students to chase after what we’re looking and never give up.

Anuchit Sapanpong

In my opinion, Itthi Sunthorn Wichailak, the director of Overture, also known as Hom Rong did a very good job in filming this movie at a low cost budget. The capture of the scene, the sound track and most importantly, Anuchit Sapanpong who plays the main character, Sorn, portrays his character really well. Anuchit learned to play ranard-ek, a wooden percussion instrument similar to the xylophone just months before the filming of the movie and he is able to perform as if he had already mastered the instrucment for years. Kudos for his hard work and professionalism in this movie shooting!

Unlike any other movies, Overture talks about the same character over two different time zones, an unique way of telling stories in a movie. One is his journey growing up discovering his passion and love for music and another one when he had already been recognised as a master at his elder age and his fight against the government for 'cultural control' at that time. Sorn's whole life has been challenge with different hurdles, time when he had to face and compete with his fear, a strong competitor Kun In, he had to overcome himself in order to truly understand how he could perform better with his ranard-ek skills. After he received the recognition from the King and the country, Sorn at his elder age realized that the government does not appreciate the music culture as much as before. The government wanted to control the 'cultural lifestyle' of the citizens as they want to modernize the society hoping it would bring the nation to a whole new different level. 

Sorn playing Ranard-Ek

Lastly, I would say that I am really impressed with the director and cameraman’s skills in this movie. From high angle shot till a close up shot of Sorn playing ranard-ek, each and every one of them presents a very impactful scene to the audience and it really tells that Anuchit is confident enough to master the music instrument. It is a 9/10 kind of movie, good shooting skills, good actors and great storyline, very worth-watching!


Ending my review with a poster of Overture, till next time!

Brave

Who would knew there’s such big courage hidden in the sweet looking girl like Princess Merida in the recent most-discussed animation, Brave? Brave is one of the latest creations of Pixar. Pixar has proved to the world that animation is no longer Disney’s monopolized field. There’s a number of Pixar’s film that has been nominated for Best Animated Feature with winnings such as Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Toy Story and so on. Brave, is definitely one of the most interesting and expressive animation productions of Pixar that I’ve ever seen.

Kelly Macdonald

Brave is based on the story of a flamed-haired heroine that does not want follow her destiny to become only an ordinary princess. Kelly Macdonald, a Scottish actress voices Princess Merida as a Scottish heroine brings out essence of the character and I think no one suits Merida better than Kelly. Unlike any usual fairytale stories for children, Brave stories about the courage of a princess wanting to become like her father, King Fergus, rather having a bow as her present than the other usual girly stuff. However, Queen Elinor, mother of Merida disagrees with her daughter as she thinks Merida should sit, eat and stand like a perfect princess. There is this scene where Queen Elinor dresses Merida up as a proper princess for her arranged matchmaking with the son of one of the clans that wins the archery contest but Merida showed that she had better skills than any of them, she eagerly wants to prove that she’ll never lose to any guy.

Brave also talks about the love within a family and certainly some precious moral values for the guidelines of others. Merida had always do things in her own liking but she soon found out that nothing is actually more important than reuniting with her own family members. Merida went to a witch after Queen Elinor tries to match make her with one of the son of their neighboring clans and wish the witch to cast a spell that would change her mother. She never knew that the spell was to change her mother into a bear and also coincidently causes her three little brothers to take the potion too. She found out that she had only 2 sunrises before her mother; Queen Elinor will permanently became a bear.

Merida regrets and blamed herself for the incident but she then learned how to become a better daughter by protecting and taking care of her mother.

Regardless that Brave is an animation suitable for children’s consumption, this movie has also taught us, the adults to appreciate our families no matter what happened; because nothing in this world will ever valued that much. And also, as the movie title, be brave to encounter any obstacles in our life!

Ending my post with the three little cute brothers of Merida, till next time.